Work Text:
You have always found something impeccably lovely in the way you you are shoved to the ground—by impossibly strong foe or harsh taskmasters—and find yourself lying with your face smashed into the dirt, the stench of bloodied copper filling your lungs. There is something so beautiful, so fulfilling in wiping that smeared blood from your cracked lips and staggering back onto your feet, only to make the same half-thought mistake and finding yourself shoved away harder than before. In that failure, in the face of complete loss and obliteration, there is a relief bordering on salvation in the achingly familiar thrum of pain your limbs, unsteady on your wracked, boneless legs as you stumble back to the Rising Stones time and time again. The Scions never understood how you tolerated the myriad of injuries with a smile and a satisfied hum as your bruises healed from pallid purple into stale brown, but you couldn’t deny the satisfaction you found in your own suffering, even if it terrified you.
You were beginning to suspect that this fascination with your own pain tolerance, how far past the brink you could push yourself and still bounce back, was beginning to bleed into everything you did. It was why you always tried (and failed) to drink Thancred under the table given the chance, hiccuping dizzily into strange Eulmoran whiskey, or why you would fecklessly shove yourself between anyone and anything who would hurt your friends, or why you threw yourself into the arms of countless brutal and unrelenting teachers, failing, failing, failing, and finally accomplishing one impossible task before moving on to the next. You suspected your penchant for danger was far from the only thing tainted by this fascination with pain; while your experience in the bedchamber bordered on next to none, your heart raced unbidden when you came across a particularly skilled combatant; what would they do to me, you’d think, if they had their way with me between the bedsheets? Those thoughts grew to a screaming in the face of Zenos yae Galvus, only subdued by the knowledge of all he had taken from everyone you loved.
It taunted your darkest moments, as much as you tried to push them to the side; how could you resist them, what would it feel like to have arms that could kill lovingly wrapped about you, the fear and desire one and the same…
… such thoughts were far from your mind when you agreed to cross swords with The Crystal Exarch one bright foggy morning in your quarters.
“I fear my performance has waned some, since we suffered through Holminster Switch together,” he smiles at you gently. He is the picture of ease with his gilded hood pushed back, scarlet grey-streaked hair still damp from his morning bath and smelling pleasantly of crushed almonds. “If you’ll go easy on this old man’s bones—”
You scoff, stirring another lump of sugar into your mug of tea. You wondered if the reason you felt so energetic was all the sweetener you’d been taking in your morning tea, but you suspected it had much to do with the man you were breaking fast with, and the way his sanguine eyes glimmered in the dim aetherlight at the promise of training with you. “Go easy? I watched you bear the brunt of several killing blows as easily as a willow in a storm; I fear I’d be doing you a disservice if I relented, ‘Raha.”
“My strength is mostly from the boundless reservoirs of the Tower,” he reminds you primly, “and besides, between the two of us, you have killed things far more monstrous than one such as I.”
You shrug. “Fate put the sword in my hand and me on my path. It has little do with ability. As one particularly irritable dragon is fond of reminding me, I am not gifted, but chosen.”
“After single-handedly saving this Shard— “
“Single-handedly? I could not have even gotten here without you, G’raha— “
“Fine, with some help, but, my friend, you cannot deny you possess uncanny ability, so please, do not destroy me as thoroughly as you quartered Thancred last moon.”
You chuckle into your tea at the memory. “The only reason I made such an effort to put some sense into him was to teach him a lesson.” While he was striving to be kinder to Ryne, you still noticed the way he attempted to be an authority figure to a the girl so yoked by duty she could hardly hold her chin high, and so when the Scions were training together one morning, you casually drew your weapon and offered a spar. Thancred complained even now he was nursing the welts you gave him—as he deserved.
“And do I require any tutelage, Warrior?” The Exarch fixes a grin at you meant only for your eyes; your heart stutters, stammers, starts. There is something uniquely earth-shattering about such a glimmering smile from a man so often dour and serious; you know you’d do much and more to see that smile again and again.
“Nothing comes to mind,” you stammer, casting your eyes downward and away from his magnetic light, and moving to clear away your meal.
The Exarch helps you clear away the plates from your dining table, and together you leave the Pendants and down to the guard’s barracks. The guards are obviously discomfited by the Exarch’s presence, who mildly requests the usage of the field for sparring practice. As they shuffle off the grounds, you prepare yourselves for the spar. Neither of you wear armor; the Exarch in his usual regal robes, you in a comfortable dark tunic and leggings, but you do blunt your weapons with a special enchantment.
“It appears,” the Exarch notes, twirling his aetheric sword in his crystal hand experimentally, “that we have an audience.”
You had been preoccupied with tugging tight the laces on your jackboots; you look up to see most of the off-duty guard milling around the training field, too obviously avoiding looking at either of you, but you catch the glint of gil exchanging palms, and the familiar way in which warriors assize others with cocked heads and toothy smirks. Lyna herself is leaning against a post, a wry smile on her full lips. You hope she doesn’t begrudge you if you win the spar.
“Well, we shan’t disappoint, shall we?” you grin at him, preparing your weapon, feeling the familiar thrum of power rush through your veins, a heady counter to the sweetness of your breakfast. You take your positions a few yalms away from each other, falling into well-practiced combat stances.
“At your ready.” The Exarch readies his shield, pure glimmering aether, returning your smile with a fierceness that causes you to falter; in that instant, he is every ilm the man who beat you at finding aetheric sands in Mor Dhona, who locked himself in a tower for an unknown fate with the reckless surety of man much younger and so much more full of life and hope, and your heart pangs with affection for him.
In your daze, he rushes you; you draw your sword to block him at the last instant with a screech of metal, your heart hammering in a way that has nothing to do with the thrill of battle. Teeth bared, he abates, then launches again. He is aggressive, spry, and damned fast. You counter skillfully, feinting to drive your sword down onto his shield with all your strength, but he artfully bounces your attack away, bounding back to his starting point, light on his feet and kicking up dust.
“Come, now!” He crows to you. “I said go easy on me, not hand me a victory!”
In your defense, with his exuberant joy and the incredible way his well-muscled arms move with catastrophic strength, it was incredibly difficult to concentrate. How were you supposed to think about besting him when you wanted nothing more than to see him be this happy? With a shake of your head you collect yourself, then attack again. This time, you get a glancing blow off his shoulder; the peal of metal meeting hardened crystal echoes across the field, and the soldiers gasp as the Exarch spins back. You see Lyna take a protective step forward.
“I—” you drop your stance, terrified you’ve injured your dearest friend, only to wholly lose your footing as the blunt edge of his blade connects with your knee; he strikes with such force that the joint spasms in pain and you fall to your knees, leaning heavily on your sword.
The watching guards erupt into murmurs. “By the gods, he felled the Warrior of Darkness…!”
“Is aught amiss, my friend? You are not yourself, it seems.” The teasing tone in the Exarch’s voice is gone, replaced only with concern. He kneels down to your level, and it’s too much all at once. Panting, his sanguine eyes meet yours, a flush from physical exertion high in his cheeks, sweat dripping off his brow. The combination of his usual engimatic woodsy scent with clean sweat is a heady thing indeed, and you nod shakily, leaning forward.
You want to grab his robes and bring him into a biting kiss for all to see.
You come to your feet and swing your sword instead.
If you were battling against anyone else, you would have won handily. The Exarch wasn’t as strong as Thancred, nor clever as Alphinaud nor resourceful as Y’shtola, but each of his strikes jolts you down to the core, running from the fingers wrapped around the hilt of your sword straight to your clattering teeth. His blows, while stinging, are not as ruthless as the ones Alisaie has given you, but you falter beneath them, the wind knocked out of you, dazed and confused. Normally you could chart the telegraph of his attacks, but your eyes are drawn to all the wrong spots; instead of seeing the turn of his heel in the dirt, you see the way his hair is coming undone from its usual braid. You fail to notice how his eyes focus in on your left and instead are mesmerized by the elegant arch of his neck. You are fighting each other, but on two wholly separate battles. I’m losing to him, you realize with a jolt of fear and… something else entirely.
Frustrated at your own failures, uncomprehending of its nature, you play dirty and grab at his robes, hoping to disorient him. He reacts fast as levin. And that’s how you find your back pressed against his heaving chest, his skin scorching you through your clothes, blunted aetheric sword at your neck. It is symbolic in its brutality, but the sweetest thrum of fear rushes your veins as he pants, hot and heavy, into your ear.
“Match?” he grinds out, his crystal hand unyielding around your wrist, twisting it behind your back so harshly tears spring to your eyes. You squirm against him; your pugilist training tells you it will be impossible to break his grip like this. Unbidden, the image of him having you like this, bent over and fighting, your arms bound behind your back, causes you to lose what little breath you still had. You realize with a start that your buttocks are rubbing against his groin, and you don’t think you’re imagining what you feel there…
The sword brushes your exposed and vulnerable neck again, sweet and lethal. You yearn to lean into it, lean into him, and you know in that moment you would surrender everything to him.
“Match,” you agree with a hum, leaning your full weight against him with a sigh, your sword clattering to the ground. His arms come hard at your hips, steadying you, but his fingers dig into your flesh harder than necessary, and you wonder if you’re not entirely imagining how electric the energy between you feels.
Then he steps away, and you nearly fall over with how damning the loss of his presence feels. You spin to speak to him, but with a swish of his gilded robes he’s striding back to the Crystal Tower, nearly in a sprint. You frown, but collect your sword and walk back to the Pendants.
A shower would be most welcome. And perhaps some physical relief.
—
It is all he can do to keep himself from breaking out into a full sprint back to his sanctuary. He doesn’t give so much as a nod to the Tower guard, instead throwing open the doors to the Oculus with a grimace and shirking his sweat-damp robes before entering the washroom and starting his shower. He throws himself into the icy water with a hiss before scrubbing ruthlessly at his skin with sandsoap.
What… was that?
One moment he was sparring with the Warrior of Light, mesmerized by her graceful moments, elating in the rush of strength he felt as he clashed swords with her over and over, and the next he was contemplating taking her then and there in front of the entire circle of Crystarium guard. He couldn’t have pointed out the exact moment the shift occurred, but the feeling of her fighting against him, writhing and desperate…
“Twelve help me,” he says miserably, yanking his hair out of its braid. Unbidden, his mind went back to how he had her in the courtyard; it would have been so easy to bend over, yank down her leggings, and shove himself into the wet heat he somehow knew was there. And she would have let him, he knew it. His hand wanders, slipping over soaped skin and to his growing erection, stroking once, thumb running over the swollen head…
And he drops his grip, slamming his crystal hand into the wall of the shower. What was wrong with him?! Over the century alone, waiting for her, dreaming of her, in his darkest moments, he had resorted to bringing himself to climax, her name (always her name) on his lips and the orgasm rendering him wordless and touch starved. But such was not now!
Her bare skin is cloaked in naught but Allagan adornments, trimming her breasts with starlit rubies and thin golden chains ‘crossing her slender torso and draping low over her hips. She smells of fire and anointing oil, lamplight glimmering over her oil-slickened curves. He kneels before her, supplicant and worshipper, between her legs, his face buried in that blessed heat. There is penitence in every swipe of his tongue, offering her benedictions the only way he can, the only way left to him, gripping her slippery and spangled skin desperately. Her cries are soft and mellifluous to his ears; “Mmm… just like that, my ‘Raha… please…” She twists artlessly in his arms as her climax overtakes her, a slow storm that threatens to devour him and leave nothing in its wake—save her and her alone.
The imagery is too much and not enough; he grits his teeth against the urge to chase his own pleasure, her voice ringing in his ears still. The fantasy was a favorite of his, a heady combination of hero worship and his intimate knowledge of Allag, but the vividness of it… was new. He screws up his eyes again, trying to calm his hardness, casting his mind on matters such as… various policies for farming, or the pending trade agreement with Eulmore. Yes, yes that would do. They had asked for a ten percent profit margin, a criminal lowball in his opinion—
His shoulder twinges as he rotates it; she had nicked his crystalline arm so hard the pain radiated up to his neck. Gods, had he really bested her in that fight? It didn’t seem possible for him to have done so; perhaps she was ill? He remembers how her eyes were wide with an emotion he couldn’t determine, soft lips parted in a gasp as he took ruthless advantage of her hesitation. He had no fear of hurting her; he knew she had, and would, suffer much worse at the hands of those who had no love for her, but he hadn’t expected her to fear for his well-being, and something about that… angered him. Frustrated him. Inflamed a rebelliousness in him unseen since he once lived on the Source some three hundred years ago. The same anger that drove him to make himself a fool in proving himself to her during the Syrcus Tower expedition, so inflamed by her effortless beauty and strength; it had followed him all these years.
He shuts off the valve for the shower, toweling off and finding himself frustrated at how damned hot he still is; the weather wasn’t exactly warm, but the idea of putting on his robes again makes him want to scream, and to his horror, his hardness hadn’t abated in the slightest.
That was wholly strange. The Tower melding into his body had left him with strange and inexplicable side effects aside from the physical, his sex drive being negligible being one. Which, considering the arduousness of the tasks that had lay ahead of him, it was a small mercy, and perhaps the only thing that kept him from being untoward to the singular object of his desires. The whole matter reminds him of a hazy, lust-addled memory, his first and only heat—
The pounding heartbeat. His skin feeling aflame. The way her musky scent lingered in his nostrils, the touch of her skin a brand on his…
Shite.
—
He thinks he might be in the clear. With the quick-thinking mind of one trained by the Sharlayans, he summons a confused Lyna and instructs her he is feeling unwell and would only be accepting visitors for emergencies until further notice. While concerned, she accepts his decree without much fight.
“My lord,” Lyna asks, poised to leave, “what if she comes? You told me to always let her in without question.”
He hesitates. “I…” He drums his fingers on his desk, contemplating his answer. “Only emergencies, Lyna. She will understand. Thank you in advance.”
She flashes him a doubtful look before leaving him to his self-imposed exile.
With the next few suns cleared for him, he elects to handle this matter much the same as the first; by throwing himself as bodily into his studies as possible. He rarely had an excess of time nowadays, and he was certain he might be able to parse a breakthrough on white auracite given enough uninterrupted study. Mind set to the task, he moves about the Umbilicus and selects some lesser studied tomes that might prove to shed some light on the matter. He scrawls a note to himself on a spare sheet of paper to send a missive to Beq Luqq, see if she has aught to say on the matter.
A passage in the tome he was bowed over caught his attention; a section had been doggedly outlined and highlighted, and had served as a fundamental part of his summoning the Scions and the Warrior of Light.
The memory of when he saw her again takes him by storm, as it so oft does, and the coursing hormones in his blood do nothing to stop it.
He had shook as he spoke the final words of the complex incantation, a tremor spreading down his spoken hand, causing his Allagan staff to tremble like a willow in the wind. His blood was thrumming with the suffusion of power, threatening to pull him under, rip him apart, and leave nothing left. The Exarch was all too used to the crushing pressure that came with his position and duty, threatening to swallow him whole on dark nights locked inside the Umbilicus, pouring over ancient texts, fatigue and heartache almost enough to render him useless.
The suffusion of crystalline power left him in a rush; without the support of the Tower’s strength, he collapsed to the floor, heaving for air, the crystal chilly beneath his skin.
“Get up,” he had snarled to himself, struggling to stand. “By the Twelve, get up.”
If he hadn’t already spent two centuries asleep, he might have fallen asleep then and there, but he had spent so, so long in slumber, waiting for the moment destiny would deign to use him, but now he would defy fate itself for her sake, and so, he must stand. He had struggled to his feet, leaning heavily on his staff before slamming a palm against the mirror of the Umbilicus.
“Her,” he commanded. “Where is she?”
The mirror shimmered, flashed, then coalesced.
And then he saw those eyes he has spent a century waiting for and his world shattered.
After the Eighth Umbral Calamity, the Warrior was easily on par with the gods with how much lore and poetry was written about her. He owned at least a dozen such tomes—purely for academic purposes—that attempted to capture her beauty, strength, and life. She was compared to wild levinstorms shattering across the plains, her breath the sweeping life-giving rain on parched sands; her eyes the wild hemlocks of the Shroud, a maze one would lose themselves in for eternity if they weren’t careful.
Nothing he had ever read, not even his own distant memories of their time in the Sycrus Trench, scratched the surface of the immensity of seeing her before him.
When one is looking forward to reuniting with a dearly beloved person, it is in one’s best interest to push them as far away from their mind as possible; impatience and yearning will not make time pass faster, and in fact, will only serve to slow it to a halt. But he hadn’t had the luxury of pushing the Warrior of Light to the far reaches of his mind; she was there, taking up his heart and soul each and every morning for a hundred, torturous years, and he felt the time between them more keenly than anyone.
And here she was, mere malms away from him.
Careful, he told himself. Careful.
Unbidden, tears streamed down his face, the profound relief of his success giving rise to far too much emotion. He choked a sob down before tugging his cowl over his face and wiping his face quickly. He rarely cried before he came to the First; maybe the constant Light had made his eyes sensitive, or an unsaid quirk of the Allagan blood in him, or the compounding inexorable duty laid upon his shoulders, but tears felt so near to the surface these days. It was too much to ask a man to not err from his duty for a day, let alone every single day for a hundred years. And he hadn’t failed, not once. Everything he had ever done, every step, every breath, had brought him to this moment.
And so he ran.
He sprinted breakneck and reckless, throwing open the doors of the Oculus without looking back at the guard who calls after him. He pounded through the Exedra, ignoring the startled murmurs of his people, sprinting towards the Exarch Gate, the only thing keeping his hood from whipping off his face the careful enchantment placed up on it. He could hear Lyna’s dry wit telling her about the First, asking her questions, expressing incredulity. And her voice… had he ever missed a sound in this world so much?
He came to a skittering stop. And then he looked at her.
She stared at him with thinly veiled hatred, but she had never been so beautiful.
When he escorted her through the Crystarium that afternoon he couldn't help the spring in his step. He wanted so badly to grab her in a hug, tell her how much he’s missed her, how sorely he’s needed her guiding light in this blighted realm, how he’s worked so tirelessly for her, how he considered her opinion on every damn facet of this city’s construction, how she’s taken up home in his mind for eternity and onward.
But his duty took precedence over everything, and so he schooled his words and body language into accord.
He was more grateful for his hood than ever; she couldn’t see the ways his eyes followed her every movement as she moved through the Crystarium, an easy smile on her lips despite the stress and grief of recent events. He wasn’t alone in this; the people noticed his lovely and mysterious traveler instantaneously, for she was a magnet for broken hopeless souls. He had spent nigh a decade planning this day to the second; as he recited rehearsed information to acclimatize her to the First, he hoped, despite his formality, she could hear his intent. I love you. I’ve missed you. I’m so, so, so sorry. For everything. For what will pass. For how I’ll lie to you. For what happens when I’m gone.
And then she asked the question he’s been dreading so. What of G’raha Tia? Tears threatened to undo all of his work when she says those four syllables he hadn’t heard in so, so long, not since he roped Urianger into his plans. No lie had been so difficult as this, and he could tell how she didn’t buy his answers; she scrunched her nose in distaste, frowning at the obvious lie, but she accepted timidly as he urged her back to the Ocular.
It was almost a relief, when she quickly departed to reunite with Alisaie and Alphinaud, but her scent was everywhere, and he had to force himself from making an excuse to visit her quarters, just to see the casual mess she’s left, where she once slept in that bed, the food left unfinished, all those signs that she is here, alive, whole.
Holminster Switch was a trial of a different sort for him; her perfection in combat left him breathless, and it was all he could do to focus on protecting her from harm and not trip over his own two feet.
And then she achieved the impossible. She slaughtered the Lightwarden, taking the poisonous aether as her own as easily as she’d handled every impossible duty asked of her so far. The night sky streaked across the Flooded sky, bathing Lakeland in blessed night after an eternity of damned Light.
“How long, have I waited,” he breathed.
He fell to his knees in open reverence, because he knew no other way.
He shakes his head to clear his mind of thoughts of her, especially during so vulnerable and difficult a time for both of them, and then his ears flick as he takes notice of a commotion happening outside the Ocular doors.
“I have strict orders to not let anyone in ‘lest an emergency, Warrior, I am sorry.”
“Did he not tell you why?”
“My lord says he is ill, and it will pass in a few days.”
“Ill with what? Since when? Is he alright?”
“Warrior, please—“
“He’s in the Umbilicus, right? Just let me talk to him, and I’ll be out of your hair. He’ll send me away if he… really doesn’t want to see me.”
A pause. “… Alright. Only because it seems passing strange for him to not want to see his ‘inspiration’, of all things.” He blushes horribly at Lyna’s remark.
“Thank you. I promise I’ll let him be if he doesn’t want me— er, want to see me, that is.”
“Uh huh.” He hears the door to the Ocular swing open. A shudder of pure fire races down his skin.
“I’ll just tell her to leave,” he tries to convince himself, “and I’ll apologize to her once this is all over.” He buries his face in his hands with the realization. “Gods, I really am going to lie to her again, aren’t I?”
He nearly jumps out of his own skin when she knocks on the door of the Umbilicus, and curse the Twelve, he could smell her through the door.
It was the same heady combination of alien flowers and pure eroticism from this morning’s bout. Levin raced down his spine and lit his skin on fire, painful with oversensitivity and unbidden shudders race down his spine as he stares at the papers and books scattered across his desk. He could imagine her on the other side of the door all too vividly. The gentle gleam of her eyes, the noble slope her nose, the gentle way her clothes clung to her body, oh how he’d rip them off her to get at that beautiful boundless skin he knew lay disguised beneath.
“Exarch?” She asks gently. Gods, even her voice sounded like a thousand beautiful chimes. It was a curse, for her words drew his mind’s eye to her lips, and he decided then that he’d like to die between those lips in whatever fashion she’d deign to have him, so lovely and hairpin curves…
“One… one moment…” he stammers, clinging to his desk for support. He tried to breathe, but with every breath he took all he could smell was her, and that lit his lungs and skin on fire tenfold. Even his very vision was growing cloudy.
“Exarch, I apologize for this morning. Truth be told, I am not entirely certain what transpired, but I value our friendship too highly to allow it to delude matters between you and I.”
“Yes, well, perhaps we can speak of this in a few sun’s time,” he calls, distracted. “Thank you.”
He could hear her shuffle with annoyance. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s wrong.”
Please, for all that is good left in this shard, leave. “I am unwell, my friend, that is all.”
“Is it somewhat with the Tower? Or was this morning’s bout too much on you? I apologize—”
“Ah, yes, I think… something must be amiss." He conjures up the most ridiculous excuse he can muster. "Aetherical balances, perhaps. Y’shtola knows much about such matters. Why don’t you visit her in Rak’tika? We can speak when you get back. Have a pleasant journey.”
“… Go to Rak’tika.” She repeats sardonically, her annoyance the sort she saved only for Urianger’s driest of lectures.
“I’m sure the Night’s Blessed would be full glad to see the Warrior of Darkness again.”
“You’re hiding something,” she accuses sourly, “again.” He’s sure if he could see her he would be utterly enamored with how her nose crinkles in disgust.
He groans, burying his face in his hands. “Perhaps… perhaps I am. But it is of no consequence, I promise you, and you need not worry on my behalf or anyone else’s.”
“What—no. This is ridiculous, G’raha. You are my dearest friend, and I will not leave you be. If my presence is wholly unwelcome, I understand, but…”
“Y-Your presence is not unwelcome,” Quite the opposite, truth be told, judging by the way even merely her voice affected his body, his erection tenting painfully beneath his robes, “but I am… dealing with matters best… handled in solace.” He cringes at the unintentional pun.
She tries the door, slamming it harshly when she realizes it’s locked. “I wonder if a Flare could melt this door,” she wonders aloud, and he has the sinking feeling she was wont to attempt it. "You should probably stand back, Exarch."
“L-Let’s not destroy ancient historical architecture on my account, Warrior! If… you stand by the door, and I at the other end of the room… that should be acceptable.”
“Fine, fine. But this is absolutely ridiculous."
"Yes, well, such is matters at this point," he grumbles, moving to sit beside a distant pile of books, unlocking the door with a wave of his hand, and he realizes nothing on the First or the Source could have prepared him for seeing her under the potent affect of a long-delayed heat.
In his youth, The Exarch had never tried to become a Nunh. There was nothing keeping Miqo'te from taking their pleasure outside of mating, so during such times when the Gryphon Nunh fought the tribe’s Tias to keep his place, G’raha had always shook his head and went back to his archery or his books. Such carnal matters interested him little. Even then, he knew his fate did not lie with his tribe, and cast his mind on more celestial and arcane matters.
When the Warrior of Light entered the Umbilicus he understood then, a little, the drive to conquer and become a Nunh.
“Have you ever,” he breathes through clenched teeth, covering his nose and looking away from her, “considered not sticking your nose into every matter possible?”
She scoffs. “Often, I feel they find me.” She’s nonplussed by his annoyance, dragging his desk chair and taking a sprawling seat in it. He tries, and fails, to not drink her in. How is she so devastatingly beautiful even lounging in his battered desk chair? She crosses his arms. “Exarch— ‘Raha, what in hellfire is the matter with you?”
There was no delaying the inevitable any longer. He grits his teeth and speaks as methodically as possible, trying not to linger overly on his own words. “In Miqo’te Seeker of the Sun tribes, breeding rights are relegated to a Nunh, and the rest of the males are Tia. Male and female Miqo’tes alike will go into heats, setting off a series of fights until the Nunh maintains his position, or a Tia takes over. For those that live outside of tribes, the heats, while rare, do still occur.”
“Oh. Oh. So you’re in…?”
He spits out the word with disgust. “Heat.” By Althyk, he was humiliated. “I apologize for my words and actions a thousandfold, but being in the same malm as you is enough to endanger you. So, if you please would not mention this to any soul, I will see you in three sun’s time—”
“Forget all of that, you’re obviously in pain, ‘Raha. Let me help you.” She stood, crossing the distance between them (why was she so heedless to any sense of danger?), her movements casting her scent towards him and setting his skin and lungs on fire again.
He cowers into the wall as if struck, tail thwacking the floor. “Warrior, if you value your life, please do not touch me.”
She frowns, irritated. The most powerful woman in existence was highly unused to being told no, especially from him. “I don’t care. Let me help you. What can I do?”
Well, for one, taking off every scrap of clothing and letting me fuck you for the next sun would be a start. He clamps down on his tongue to keep from saying the obscenity aloud. He tries desperately to think of what his fellows Seekers had done to deal with such matters; some would take solace in themselves, and others would shirk from society, dealing with matters in their own hands. There were some spectacularly hidden rooms in the Tower; his mind set on one, he prepares to leave out a side door. “You can leave, please. That would be sufficient.”
“You’re suffering, are you not?” Her voice breaks through the fugue of lust. “You look fevered; I've never seen you like this. There must be… some medicine, some… something I can do to alleviate your pain.”
He growls at her. “Besides the obvious?”
She cocks her head, a wry smile on her lips. “And what is that, exactly?”
It takes all of his willpower to not jump her right then and there. The mere suggestion that she would suffer this heat with him was intoxicating in its own right, and that smile… that smile had haunted his dreams for over a century without the hormones of a long delayed heat coursing through him. He takes a deep breath to try to steady himself, the scent of her the loveliest poison in his lungs.
“W-Well… fulfilling the purpose. Of a heat. That would… that would certainly make things easier.”
She nods knowingly, giving it some thought. “That sounds… interesting, Exarch. I’ve never participated in such matters, but I’ll be happy to help. I believe I have some prophylactics—”
Hearing his title in conjunction with the idea of her spending a heat with him is a profanity all its own. “This isn’t… this isn’t some quest to help some poor villager!” He snarls. “Warrior, do not do this thing. You don’t know what you’re doing, what you’re offering, what I’d do to you if given the opportunity.”
“You’re right,” her voice lowers into something resembling a purr and he digs his nails into his hands hard enough to bleed. “I don’t know what you’d do. But… you cannot deny this thing between us, G’raha. What happened during that spar, when you grabbed me..." she trails off, not meeting his eyes. His heart hammers recklessly in his throat. "I think you know of what I speak of.”
“Only all too well, my friend, but as much as I so dearly desire to discuss such things with you, now is, perhaps, the absolute worst time to explore our feelings for one another.”
“So, is there someone else you’d prefer?” She cocks her head in curiosity, a teasing lilt in her tone. Insolent to the core, just like he loved her.
“There has never,” he snaps, “never been anyone but you, Warrior. No one I would prefer. Stars, the mere suggestion of you spending this with me is… nothing would make me happier. But I cannot express to you the… nature of how I feel in this moment. I am not myself.”
“I think I can tell, a little.” And she places a hand at his cheek, the blood pulsing in her wrist so close to him, and he loses the small modicum of self-control he had clung to all along.
He reaches out, his strength suddenly explosive, grabbing her by the collar, and bringing her to him in a searing kiss. It is all teeth and tongue and mine, mine, mine, and not in the slightest how he imagined a first kiss with the Warrior of Light. She whimpers against him, arms coming hard about his shoulders, not pushing him away, but wrapping around tight, fingernails digging into his skin. His hands rove unbidden, to her exquisitely soft breasts, down the gentle slope of her waist to her arse, before he finds a fraction of self control and, keeping his hands at her shoulders, kissing her neck, sucking a punishing lovemark into the silken flesh he finds there, delighting in the way he can feel her fragile pulse leap under his tongue.
“Tell me to stop,” he commands, wondering if he even has the strength to pull away for her sake. “Tell me, Warrior, and I will, I won’t… please, stop me…” he turns to pleading, scattering pained kisses into her soft neck, wracked by fear he’s ruined their friendship with this damned heat, of all things.
The Warrior of Light, above all else, is a woman of action. She shakes her head and tips her head upwards, capturing his lips again. This time, instead of the fire and blood of the former kiss, it is the finest champagne and silk, and he groans, collapsing into her. “Don’t stop,” she whispers against his lips. “Please don’t stop. I want to help, I want you, Raha…”
Now, he thinks to himself as he succumbs to her, I am truly beyond saving.
The kiss turns crushingly violent as he bites the pliant flesh of her lips, shoving his tongue into her mouth ruthlessly, swallowing her moans as his hands dive into her leggings and shove his fingers into that wet, wet heat that he could smell even in their sparring match this morning. She is the slickest, most beautiful flower, all for the taking, and he smells the pure pheromones coming off her like the headiest of perfumes.
“Please,” she gasps, hips bucking into his hand, “please, please…”
He’d grant her every wish. He’d do anything, be anything for her, anything to keep her making those delicious, beautiful noises for millennia onward. He shoves her leggings down, yanking her pantalettes off harsh enough to rip them, and falls to his knees to taste the delicious nectar of her apex. As he licks a scorching stripe into her pretty pink slit he realizes it’s not enough, it's never going to be enough; the scent of her more powerful than ever, hearing her squirm and yelp and sigh… he wraps his arms around her legs to bring her ever closer to him.
“I need to fuck you,” he growls against her soft flesh, sucking and licking at her, “by the gods I need you… I’ve needed you for so long, I want to make you scream, I want to make you mine...”
He shoves two fingers into her and delights in how easily they slide in; she bucks, and he digs his free hand hard enough to keep her pinned to him. The need to be in her is irrepressible, thousands of millennia of genetic coding screaming in his veins to perform this ancient, carnal act. He stands and shoves her bodily onto the desk. Were he in any less of a bloodlust, he might take the time to appreciate how wordlessly beautiful she is, the papers, tomes, and quills falling to the ground with a clatter, her ass pushed up for his taking, pressed against his desk, body heaving…
He shoves himself into her and it is like entering paradise itself. Time ceases, eclipsed only by the overwhelming pleasure of her tight, scorching flesh wrapped around him; all he can hear is her heaving breathing and the soft cries of “Yes, by the gods please, yes… you feel so good… Raha...” He thinks he may finish in her on the spot, and then he thrusts, shoving back into her with full force, and he knows he won’t last long at all.
But being in heat isn’t about sweetness or romance or making your lover finish first; it is taking, taking, taking. And so he thrusts again and comes undone, blood rushing in his ears, biting hard enough into her bared shoulder to draw blood. The tang of her blooming on his tongue is obscene in its loveliness; how does even her blood taste so good? He pinions her to him as he thrusts into her, snarling his release as she clutches the edges of the desk for purchase.
The climax offers him the smallest fraction of sanity. “Warrior, I am so, so sorry… are you alright?” He runs his hand over the ragged bite he’d left on her and is sickened by how erotic it is to him, wondering how long it’ll heal, wondering if the Scions might see and wonder who was depraved enough to take their hero like this, to mark her as his…
“How long does this last for?” she gasps, rocking her hips experimentally. Oversensitized from heat and his climax, the world shifts around him and he falls over her, crying out as the pleasure overtakes him again.
“T-three suns, is the typical…”
“Oh, good,” she exhales, giggling drunkenly. “I could get used to getting fucked like this, Raha.”
Her words jolt down his spine and straight to his half-hard cock.
The heat is back, and stars above, it has never taken him so strongly. His very mind is aflame with her, the scent of their sex mingling, the taste of her blood still on his lips…
the Exarch was too familiar with the seductive properties of power, and he has never been closer to surrendering wholly to depravity.
So oft, he has considered giving up the arduous tasks ahead of him. But she had always been his guiding light, the singular thread keeping him from descending into madness only brought about by being timelost and immortal.
But here she was, beckoning him over the precipice, and he has no defenses left.
“Come here,” he growls, scooping her into his arms easily and kissing her into silence. There is no fight in her; she squeals with delight against his lips, smiling into him with a contented hum. It feels strange indeed, to have his inspiration, the Warrior of Darkness and Light squirming in his arms, his seed undoubtedly running down her thighs, to his modest bed to debauch her for as long as she would have him.
In his daze, he misses the mark getting her into his bed; she collapses to the floor with a squeak; leggings still about her, she falls to her knees, and then a wonderfully, horrible idea takes him…
And he’s fisting that beautiful, silken hair of hers and shoving his cock into those pretty swollen lips before he can begin to stop himself.
She sucks and licks and moans, and he cannot help but thrust into that beautiful mouth over and over, her shimmering eyes filling with tears as he shoves himself selfishly to the hilt and she chokes on his length. He pulls out instinctively, stroking her reddened face as she gasps for air, her spit glistening and dripping on his cock.
“Please… I want it…” she stares up at him, mouth swollen, absolutely and irrevocably wrecked by him, and his mind spirals into absolute insanity for her. “I want you to... to come on me… is that okay?” She blinks up at him with embarrassment, biting her bottom lip timidly.
Nothing had ever been so okay in his life.
He fucks her mouth with abandon, delighting in his obscene, wet noises they make, the way her moans vibrate his swollen cock, and then in no time at all he’s climaxing in long, stringy ropes across her face and breasts; gods, there is so much of it, and she drives what little breath he still had out of him as she runs that pretty pink tongue across her swollen lips, tasting his seed.
“You’ve been so good for me,” he gasps, lifting her by the hips and tumbling her onto the bed. Her legs come apart naturally, and he sets about removing what little clothes she still had, kissing down her muscled legs as he tugs down her pantalettes and leggings over her ankles. “My good girl, my beautiful warrior… I’m going to make you come apart, my love. I want to see you break for me."
She nods, helpless and pliant, and he sets to work.
He has had the regrettable luxury of planning for over a century how he’d take her if she were his. And despite all those plans that he believed would never come to fruition, he never once considered what he would do if he had her in a heat. But one idea remains in the scattered glimpses of his mind, and he falls on the bed and pulls her on top of him. She readily straddles his lap, dripping cunt grazing his swollen cock, but he pushes her hips upwards and upwards.
She stops, legs straddling his shoulders, looking down at him with confusion. “You want me to—?”
“By the fucking Twelve, yes,” he snaps, impatient, before pulling her hips and that beautiful cunt hard onto his mouth.
She shrieks in surprise, scrabbling for the headboard before releasing a ragged moan, and he promptly decides not dying in some desolate in-between as a cursed Lightwarden was a good thing after all.
Her flavor—their flavor—explodes on his tongue, and he growls with hunger, wrapping his arms around her, fingers digging into the succulent flesh of her haunches and pressing her as hard as possible into him. As he laps at her, savoring the way she squirms as he licks at her pearl, she bucks against him, and he loses all sense of gravity, shoving his tongue into her, muffled moans pleading for her to use him, abuse him, let him make her come apart…
White lights spot in front of his eyes as he grows lightheaded, but he ignores it, pursuing her climax as doggedly as everything he does, shoving two, three fingers into her, curving upwards while she sobs brokenly above him, pausing only to kiss bruising marks into her soft, trembling thighs.
“I’m… oh by the gods… please…” his pace borders on breakneck and she gives a wordless cry, loud enough that surely the guard could hear her come apart, chanting his true name like a benediction, arching back with the fervor of her climax, supported only by his arms crushing her down, down onto him, into him.
She slides off him, boneless and gasping. The aetherlight is too bright for him, after spending so long in the dark comfort between her legs. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks over to his beautiful warrior, her face buried in the pillow, body trembling like a leaf.
“My love, are you…?” He runs a shaking hand down her back, terrified. He hadn't realized quite how much he'd brutalized her. His claiming mark on her is a sanguine crescent, and he realizes with a start that in his fervor he’d left hand-sized bruises on her hips and haunches.
She looks up at him, face tear-streaked and ravaged, with a glittering, winning smile, and he almost weeps with relief.
“You,” she sniffs, rising to her knees and wrapping her arms about his shoulders, “depraved, beautiful man, are going to be the death of me. I’ve never… where in the fourteen shards did you learn that?”
His ears flick back with embarrassment. “It’s been… a curiosity, of mine, I've only now gotten the chance to try.” he admits sheepishly.
She kisses him; long, explorative, as if she has eternity to spend with him, chasing the taste of them, purring into his begging mouth. Somehow, despite the sheer intensity, the kiss is grounding; he can focus on her, her light, her beauty, her joy, instead of the growing ache between his legs as the heat threatens to drive him under the waves once more.
But his mind is left a blank, starving slate when she breaks to whisper breathlessly in his ear.
“I’m yours.”